So, how does a person get to make a big bag of money by living on top of a hill 300 nm from anywhere ?
Lets look at how a Community's money flow works; money comes into CDEP, UB, child allowance every fortnight and it goes straight into the shop, the airline, the club/pub, the deisel pump, or anywhere else that can be found to fully spend the whole lot. Savings = zero because if the locals save it they can't spend it and if ya got it ya spend it. . .That means if you run a business or businesses that encompass the range of spending habits you can capture a lot of money and squirrel it away. Thats' business, but this of course means nothing gets retained by the community and all the blackfella money that should be put to use in Community infrastructure gets to pay for some whitefella's Jag and big boat, while the Community locals get to live the same fortnight over and over a thousand times.. .This you don't learn in your Indigenous Culture course at Monash Uni.
"Community owned" businesses ? They exist but in some Communities but one local shareholder does not make a Community owned business.
In the end bulk $ flows out of the Communities because their economies are set up on a 'market' basis not a 'social welfare' basis (I sound like Che Guevara!). Why? Thats the way the Oz economy works and small balls-ups like it's effect in blackfella camps does not register as being the cause of the problems so often photographed by the media and theorised about in the Camp Dogs 101 course at Monash.
Basically a Community is a big target if you want to make a buck - end of story. The NT floats on Canberra money, but now we are talking about where it goes not where it comes from.
How far can you take it if you want to swim in Blackfella dough ? Now the fun starts.. .Step one is to get involved in Community funds adminstration. With control of the money you can rake off levies, direct debit CDEP funds for business you run (did someone define
conflict of interest?), make up dodgy projects that need ATSIC or NLC funding, buy stuff and sell it (like furniture or something even bigger like a grader or a truck or something), or just make up bodgy CDEP recipients.
Step two is get the locals into the game. See above about spending the lot. If its there its spent. Each Community has about a half dozen clans with their own leaders. The clan leaders all get a good feed too, and in fact form the meat that goes on the bones of the rorts set up around the economic centres in the community. "Ok, you want a fishing project?" "Well, you'll need a Toyota for it too ! And a loan". .Cash handouts are easy too, in fact the boot is often on the other foot when a clan leader decides he needs a cash pay - someone down the Roper with a name like
Daniels might be good at this <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> <img src="smile.gif" border="0"> the record I think was about 30K and no it didn't last long... .The payoff here for the whitefella (but do I hear a Haka ?) is plenty of backup from the clans getting fed. Oh sorry, clan leaders I meant. Not a great deal dribbles down to the bottom but DN Casino likes the idea.
So, CASA gets a whole heap of calls; "Hey that airline real important - yu can't stop them - we complain to dat ATSIC Minister, eh !". . . .By the way, what do ATSIC and NLC do about all this ? Well the local reps get fed their
Mars Bars too, so they don't want to make any trouble.
What if competing clan leaders want to object? 'Object?' No more like get a slice of the action. Remember, they all grew up together and they all know the game. Its no-lose for them because no matter what, that money just has to keep on flowing.
What in practice happens is different economic centres, eg. the shop and the Council, are owned by and get to pay off, different clans. (When you move in new and start an airline, you get to meet the clan who its been sorted out as being the airline clan.)
So, it starts off as business and soon moves to frauds. No one really notices and no one really cares because its all too far away. Its still open about what the new NT govenment will do about it all - so far not a lot.
For the whitefella (Kamati-Kamati-YAAAAA) participants it can lead to a sh*tload of overconfidence. They really ARE on top. That plus NT burnout if you are flying. Fun.
Why do I know all this? Hey - I've been a GOD too!
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Alrite brus na sistas Dis pilot tell me all dis na I just writim down. E got no prune one like me eh! See ya!
Roberty!
[ 29 January 2002: Message edited by: RobertyRoberts ]</p>